How to Choose a Fine Art Print for Your Home
- May 25
- 4 min read
Six things we wish more people knew before buying — from two photographers who've watched beautiful prints end up on the wrong walls.
By Mariska & Nerise · Safari Susters
Here's what we've learned - applied to any fine art print purchase, not just ours.
Scale to the wall, not the room
The single most common mistake people make when buying art is buying it too small. A print that looks impressively sized in a gallery shrinks dramatically when it goes home on a large wall.
The rule of thumb: your artwork should fill roughly two-thirds of the wall width it's hanging on. For a typical 3-metre dining room wall, that means something in the A1 range (594 × 841mm) or larger. For a narrow hallway, an A2 portrait print can feel monumental.
If you're uncertain, tape newspaper to the wall in the dimensions you're considering and live with it for a day. It sounds laborious but it saves regret.
When in doubt: go bigger. A print that commands the wall has presence. A print that gets lost on it raises questions.
Choose the subject before the colour
Interior designers will tell you to match artwork to your colour palette. And there's truth to that, a jarring colour clash can unsettle a room.
But in our experience, the people who live most happily with their art chose the subject first. The image that moved them. The one they couldn't stop thinking about. Then they let the room adapt, a cushion, a throw, a plant - rather than the other way around.
Art chosen primarily for colour tends to feel decorative. Art chosen for feeling tends to feel essential.
That said: there's a practical middle ground. Wildlife photography naturally contains the palette of the natural world - warm savanna golds, cool delta blues, the green-grey of bush at dusk. These tones are almost universally compatible with both warm and cool interior schemes.
Understand what 'archival' actually means
Not all fine art prints are equal. The same image printed on different papers will look, feel, and age completely differently.
The key word to look for is archival, meaning the materials are chemically stable, acid-free, and designed to resist fading and degradation over time. Museum-quality papers like Hahnemühle Photorag are rated for 100+ years under normal display conditions.
What this means practically: your print will look the same in 30 years as it does today, provided it's framed behind UV-protective glass and kept out of direct sunlight. A non-archival print on cheap paper may start showing colour shift within a decade.
When you're investing in a limited edition piece, especially at ZAR 1,500 and above, ask the printer what substrate they use. If they can't tell you immediately, that's an answer.
Consider the light in the room
Where artwork hangs in relation to light sources dramatically affects how it looks and this is almost never discussed in buying guides.
A matte fine art print like Hahnemühle Photorag handles reflected light differently to a glossy print. Gloss papers produce bright, saturated colours but create glare when light hits them from an angle. Matte papers have a softer, more even luminosity, they look good from every angle, in every light condition.
For rooms with strong natural light from windows, matte is almost always the better choice. For rooms with controlled directional lighting - a gallery-style picture light, for example, either can work beautifully.
Also consider: do you want the print to be the first thing you see when you walk in, or something that rewards stopping? Larger prints with strong compositions announce themselves. Smaller, more intimate prints invite approach.
Frame the print, not just the image
The frame is the transition between your print and your wall. A poor frame diminishes even an excellent print. A great frame elevates it.
For fine art wildlife photography, we recommend simple, clean frames - natural timber in blonde or dark tones, or thin black or white metal. Ornate frames compete with the image. The goal is for the eye to move from the room directly into the photograph without interruption.
Always use UV-protective glass, particularly for archival prints. Standard glass transmits the UV light that degrades inks over time. Museum glass is ideal. Anti-reflective UV glass is a good middle ground.
Leave some breathing room with the mat (the white or off-white border inside the frame). A generous mat, particularly for portrait-orientation prints, creates a sense of occasion. It says: this image deserves space.
Don't overthink the arrangement
Gallery walls are fashionable and can be beautiful. But a single large print, given the right wall and the right frame, is almost always more powerful than a collection of smaller ones.
If you're hanging multiple prints: keep the bottom edges at a consistent height (usually 150cm from the floor to the centre of the print works for standing eye level). Leave generous space between them, crowded art looks anxious.
And if you're genuinely unsure where to start: buy the one print you love most, hang it somewhere prominent, and let it tell you what it needs around it. Good art has a way of organising a room around itself.
The right print for your home is the one that makes you stop when you walk past it. Still, after years, and feel something.
Everything else - scale, paper, frame, light, is in service of that moment.
We're always happy to help people find the right piece for their space. If you have a wall in mind and aren't sure where to start, send us a photo. We'll give you an honest recommendation.
Find Your Print
Browse our limited edition wildlife prints — all on Hahnemühle Photorag, all strictly limited to 50 editions, all made in the wild.
Mariska & Nerise - Safari Susters
We photograph wildlife across southern Africa and print our work in limited editions of A1 - 50 and A0 - 25. Every image in our collection was captured in the wild.
As featured in Michelangelo Magazine (distributed across 142 countries) · Travel & Things
Comments